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Monday, May 21, 2012

Google Maps API for Dummies

...or at least I wish that's what this post was, or that I could find a Google Maps API for dummies book or website....or anything. So for those of you who find this post looking for such a thing, I apologize for my inadvertent Search Engine Optimization (SEO) leading you here.

I've spent a lot of time over the last two weeks complaining about Google and then learning more about the amazing things you can do with their products. This has only gotten worse since I decided to become proficient with the Google Maps API. You might have noticed the interesting semantics of the previous sentence. I've decided to become proficient at things before with mixed results, for the most part though I end up with a modest improvement in a particular skill which I can use to, in some way, make things better. On occasion I've fallen flat on my face, and this Google Maps API decision has me losing to gravity once again.

This provides me the first opportunity to quote a Disney movie in some time.Merlin:
Don't take gravity too lightly or it'll catch up with you.
Arthur:
What's gravity?
Merlin:
Gravity is what causes you to fall.
Arthur:
Oh, like a stumble or a trip?
Merlin:
Yes, it's like a stumble or a- No, no, no, it's the force that pulls you
downward, the phenomenon that any two material particles or bodies, if
free to move, will be accelerated toward each other.

Before you get excited and click on that, let me explain a bit more. Or did you already click on it?

It's taken me a solid week to get anything working here. I have had some hosting space, doing nothing but taking up space at
the cost of about 70 bucks a year. Dealing with simple issues like not having your naked domain (projectmaplab.com) redirect to www.projectmaplab.com and a host of requisite website annoyances slow things down but the good news is I've got most of that stuff fixed. Now I can focus on the laboratory part of things.

When you go to projectmaplab.com you are just as likely to find a page that doesn't load as a map with some strange coloring or just a base map of Ann Arbor. The point is this is truly my new little map laboratory. That means, some experiments will work, and others when mixed incorrectly will blow up like wort remover from Mr. Turkentine.

Ah ha...another movie reference. This isn't the original clip, but it will suffice.